


Four First Kisses

by Mithen



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-05
Updated: 2006-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-30 08:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Superman is killed, Bruce Wayne must find out how far he will go to make the world right again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First One

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Четыре первых поцелуя](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4931674) by [Melissa_Badger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melissa_Badger/pseuds/Melissa_Badger)



There was a coppery taste of blood in Batman's mouth.

He was typing on the Watchtower computer, entering data. Analyzing wave frequencies.

He had been doing this for some time now. A long time.

Warm hands on his shoulders. Diana. She was saying something about a funeral. He ignored her. She should know by now that Batman didn't do funerals. Not the last one. Not this one.

The taste of blood in his mouth.

_New Year's Eve. Times Square, New York City. Thousands of celebrants. The JLA gets the message that something's happening there, some energy reading that's never been seen before._

_They teleport into chaos--smoke, explosions, a silvery metallic figure that darts about at inhuman speed, caroming off buildings with impossible grace. Beams of light from its arms cut buildings in two. The moving mirrored ball is sliced in half, never to reach the bottom of its descent, stopped. Eruptions of glass everywhere. Superman shields the crowd from the flying debris. Wonder Woman hooks the figure's foot with her lasso, only to be flung through another building._

_Red Tornado flies up to Batman. "It's a construct--some kind of robot! I've never seen anything like it before!" The robot is trading energy bolts with Black Lightning and Green Lantern now. The bolts sizzle by them as they send green and yellow crackling back at it. It seems to be holding its own._

_Batman speaks into his communicator. "Arsenal. EMP arrow."_

_"On it, Bats." The arrow arcs over the screaming crowd, which Superman is still struggling to protect. It hits the robot with a sharp searing noise, and the robot goes limp, falling to the ground with a thump in front of the Man of Steel._

An angry, snarling voice from behind him. Vixen. "I know you never got along with Superman, but how _dare_ you not go to his funeral? You _owe him_ that much respect, Dark Knight." Underneath the fury in her voice Batman could hear tears. He ignored her, continued working on the computer. A choking growl, and Vixen continued. "Are you laughing under that damned cowl? Have you finally gotten what you always wanted--to be the only world's finest at last?"

"Go away." There was some reason he should be angry at her, but he couldn't remember exactly why. He could taste blood in his mouth.

"Did you make his last moments easier, Batman? Did you comfort him at all, or did you _gloat_ as he died?"

"Go away." There was a hiss of pure rage beyond his shoulder, but someone caught her arm, led her away. Batman caught a glimpse of green. Probably Hal Jordan.

Thank you, Hal.

_As Arsenal lets out a whoop of victory, Superman warns the crowd away from the fallen foe. "Everyone, stand back, it might not be--"_

_The robot jerks upward, puts its hand on Superman's chest. A bolt of silver energy at point-blank range._

_Kal-El is cut almost in half._

Diana again. She put a sandwich next to his console. "Bruce. We're going to the funeral now. Please...try to eat something." Batman wondered how long it had been since he had eaten. Longer than it had been since had slept. A long time. He took a bite of sandwich, staring at the monitor.

The coppery tang of blood in his mouth.

_A horrible, stunned heartbeat. Time seems to stand still. Batman seems to be the only person moving, swinging off the roof, down, down to Kal's side. The robot leaps to its feet and flees, the rest of the JLA in hot pursuit. Batman hears a voice yelling something. "No, no, no, **no.** " It seems to be his own voice._

_A horrible, wrenching dislocation. The world swims around Batman as he kneels next to Superman. The man who had often been close to an enemy, sometimes been nearly a friend, is lying in a pool of blood, his eyes lucid._

_There is no saving him._

Someone had turned on a television behind him to show the funeral. He heard J'onn J'onzz's low, clear voice, solemn and sad, and felt a sudden, almost nauseating stab of _deja vu._ "Superman. Kal-El. The Man of Steel. The Last Son of Krypton."

Clark...

J'onn voice continued half-heeded behind him, talking about Superman's bravery, his humility, his grace and passion. His kindness. His aloneness. J'onn's voice broke. "All beings are...alone together. Kal-El's aloneness ran deep and true. Yet somehow, when I was near him, I was...never as alone."

Other voices. They buzzed on about heroism, about power, devoid of meaning.

Blood in his mouth.

_As Batman bends over him, Kal's eyes focus on him. There's no pain in them, just shock, surprise, and a deep...it looks almost like **disappointment.** He struggles to say something. "G--" He chokes, gasps, and tries again. "Gl--" The effort causes blood to well up in his mouth, trickle down one pale cheek._

_"Don't. Don't. Please." Batman uses the edge of his cape to wipe away the stream of blood. Useless. Useless._

_The look in Superman's eyes becomes one of desperation and something else, something that Batman can't quite bear either to look at or to look away from. He reaches up and pulls Batman to him with a bloody hand._

_Pulls his mouth down into a kiss. Tender. Yearning. A kiss._

_Clark dies in the middle of the kiss. People who say the dead look like they're sleeping have never seen dead people. Superman doesn't look like he's sleeping at all. He looks dead._

_The rest of the JLA find Batman still kneeling by the body when they come back._

A woman took the podium, her eyes red with weeping. The reporter, Lois Lane, the one who had written so many stories about Superman. They had been good friends. Batman wondered briefly why Clark had never dated her. He felt dizzy, a wave of exhaustion and vertigo washing over him. But didn't--hadn't Lois and Clark...?

He shook his head vigorously. That was ridiculous. He knew the marital status of his teammates, and Clark had never been married. Never even really dated anyone.

The reporter was speaking, her voice hoarse but clear. She talked about Kal-El's life, his career and his friends. She told some stories about him, even managed to make the audience laugh a little at one of them, something about his damn dog. She paused, gathering her thoughts. "As an investigative reporter, I always found Superman's life something of a mystery. In a world so often dark and cold, why was he so good? And...why so lonely? Elizabeth Cady Stanton once said, 'there is a solitude in every person more inaccessible than the ice-cold mountains, more profound than the midnight sea--the solitude of self.' Kal-El, to me, personified that essential solitude, that aloneness that cuts to the core of one's being. Why such a good...such a kind...such a giving man should have been so deeply alone will always be...a great mystery to me."

She bowed her head, tears spilling over at last. "Peace be with you, Kal-El."

Batman continued to scan the monitor as the crowd began to sing a hymn.

The feel of Clark's mouth, warm and gentle.

The taste of Clark's blood on his lips.

_Why the hell would Kal-El use his final moments to **kiss** him?_

An energy reading on the screen. It matched the one spotted at Times Square five days ago. Smallville. The ruins of Lex Luthor's old house there.

Batman focused in on it. The FBI were already there, setting up a perimeter. Damn it. He'd have to go in disguise if he wanted full access.

In his quarters, he pulled on a black suit. Glimpsing himself in the mirror, he stopped cold in shock. At least three days of stubble on a face almost too haggard to recognize; he'd never pass for FBI like that. He went into the bathroom, lathered his face, pulled a razor across it. His hands were shaking. The razor caught on a scab on his jawline, pulling it open again. He didn't remember getting that cut, it must have been during the fight on New Year's Eve. Blood dripped into the sink and he cursed quietly to himself. _What was wrong with him?_

As his last preparation, he holstered a weapon that looked like a close-range taser. It was actually a modified EMP emitter that might prove able to take the assassin down.

Clark's lips on his. The taste of blood.

They'd be coming back from the funeral soon, but he didn't need backup on this one.

Batman didn't do funerals.

Batman did vengeance.

* * * * *

The burnt-out ruins of Lex Luthor's old home sat on a bluff, brooding over Smallville. In the distance you could just barely see the Kent farm. Considering what he knew of Luthor, Batman had no doubt that as a young man he had spent much time watching that farmhouse, a smudge on the horizon.

"Glenn O'Neill"'s credentials as an FBI agent were impeccable, of course, and he slipped into the building as the sun started to set. The estate was sprawling and maze-like, and Bruce soon found himself alone and vaguely disoriented. The remains of a large stone fireplace jutted up from the ground.

A faint skittering noise was all the warning he had before the assassin robot was on him.

He dodged, his relexes dulled by weariness, and found himself tumbling through the air, ricocheting off the fireplace and back at the robot in a white, unthinking fury, his modified taser in his hand. There was a hissing, crackling noise as they staggered back a few steps together, and Bruce felt a faint shock like electricity run through him. The robot cocked its head at the whining weapon Bruce held, and then it turned and fled.

Bruce followed it, bursting out of the ruins, yelling for backup from the FBI agents. There was only one person there, a dim figure in the gathering gloom. The robot flashed by him, Bruce right after it. "Stop him, for God's sake!" he barked at the remaining agent. The other man started in surprise, then bolted after the assassin. The robot turned and grabbed the agent, threw him backward into Bruce. The two of them went down in a heap on the ground and the silver figure disappeared in a blur of speed.

Gasping from the impact, Bruce glared up at the man who had landed on top of him. Azure eyes stared back at him, bewildered.

It was Clark.

It was _Clark._

_Alive._

Only decades of deep-trained reticence kept Bruce from yelling Clark's name, from throwing his arms around the other man, from...doing something very stupid indeed. Because as the first shock wore off, he realized abruptly that this person could be no more than twenty years old. Practically a boy, really, a very confused boy who scrambled off him and offered a hand to help him up. Bruce grabbed the hand and was hoisted easily to his feet. Once there, the world around him suddenly started spinning, circling out of control. Shock, exhaustion, the effects of whatever the hell had just happened. Clark's voice--too young, too young, but still Clark's voice--echoed oddly around him in looping _deja vu._ "Are you okay, mister? Mister?"

Merciful blackness.

* * * * *

Clark Kent caught the other man as he fell, lifted him effortlessly. The stranger's face was pale and drawn with exhaustion and something else that Clark couldn't name. He studied it for a while, cautiously.

It seemed like a good face.

He began the long walk home with the stranger in his arms.


	2. The Second One

_A dream: Kal-El is kissing him, dying. The image repeats, faster and faster, looping about into a Moebius strip of love and death, spiraling into infinity, over and over._

"Mr. O'Neill? Mr. O'Neill?" _Deja vu_ wrenched through Bruce as he heard Clark's voice. He opened his eyes. He was in a bed, in a tiny room cluttered with the usual teenager paraphenalia--movie posters, magazines. The young Clark of last night was sitting in a chair next to him, his face worried. He wasn't wearing glasses, and his dark hair fell across his eyes in a shaggy mop. 

He was heartbreakingly beautiful. 

Bruce groped for something to say that wouldn't reveal that he suddenly wanted to weep. "How do you know my name?"

Clark reached out and tapped his chest. A faint sound of plastic. "Your ID." Of course. Access to the investigation scene. Glenn O'Neill, Federal Bureau of Investigations. Right there over his heart. 

The robot. Bruce sat up and the room swam around him. "I have to find it, have to--"

Clark looked alarmed and eased him gently back onto the bed. "I don't think you're going anywhere for a while, sir." Bruce closed his eyes. Even disoriented, he had picked out the calendar on the wall. It was dated seventeen years ago. He was seventeen years in the past. 

The boy was frowning. "Who exactly was that guy last night, if you don't mind me asking?"

He didn't know it was a robot. Better to run with that. The less Clark knew, the better. Though obviously, somehow, Clark didn't remember this meeting. He certainly had never mentioned it to Bruce in their years working together. 

Bruce collected his thoughts. "He...he killed someone. Someone very important."

Clark looked at his face. "Important to you?"

"Important to the world," snapped Bruce. 

Clark looked skeptical. "I watched the news this morning and there wasn't anything about an assassination."

"You...wouldn't have seen anything about it." He tried to get out of bed again. "I have to find him, bring him to justice..." 

"No." The boy's face was set in stubborn lines. "You'll get yourself hurt if you go after him like that. I don't care how important this dead guy was, he's dead and you're not. You need rest and food. Finding his killer won't bring him back." 

Bruce wanted to argue, but the room spun out of control again and whirled him into blackness.

*****

The smell of food woke him up. Clark was sitting by the bed with a tray. A grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. "Here. Eat something." 

Bruce took a bite of sandwich. The kid was right, he couldn't find--much less fight--the robot if he couldn't even stand up. "Don't you have parents or something?"

"They're visiting my uncle in Wellington for the week. They left me to take care of the farm." He looked proud of himself. Bruce was relieved. Martha and Jonathan Kent would hardly have been pleased to find an apparent FBI agent poking around Smallville, much less in their alien son's bed. 

He was in Clark's bed. He tried not to think too much about that. "Aren't you a little young to be running a whole farm?"

The boy looked somewhat deflated. "It's a small farm. And I'm not that young, I just graduated from high school." Clark stood up and opened the curtains to let in the late-morning sunlight, staring out at the sky for a moment. He sat back down with a sigh. "I've been accepted to Kansas State in the fall, but..." he looked at Bruce. "I just feel like there's...something more I should be doing. But I don't know how..." His voice trailed off. "You know?" 

"Not really. I've pretty much always known what I wanted to do."

Clark leaned forward, his eyes eager. "Really? How--how did you get into the FBI?"

Bruce felt a stab of alarm. "Oh, you don't want to hear my story--" 

The boy cut him off in a rush of words, like he'd been holding them in for hours. "No, I do, I do! I want...I want to be like you, Mr. O'Neill. I knew it the minute I saw you fighting that guy, the way you moved, like you knew exactly what you were doing and what you were and--I want that! Clarity. Purpose. I _have to be_ like that. Tell me how, _please."_ Naked hero-worship in those dazzling blue eyes. Bruce wanted to crawl under the sheets and disappear. Clark continued through his silence. "I can get into the FBI, I know I can, sir." He ducked his head bashfully. "I can pass any test. I've got--I've got talents. I could--be your partner!" 

Bruce snorted laughter. "Don't be stupid, boy." He stopped speaking there, horrified to hear his voice waver. 

"I'm not stupid." The hurt in Clark's eyes was immense as the sky. "I want to do good. I want to help people. That's _not stupid."_

Bruce took a deep breath, willed his voice to steadiness. "I'm sorry. That's not stupid at all. I just think maybe the FBI isn't the best fit for you."

"I'll help you find that guy."

"I don't need your help."

Now it was Clark's turn to laugh. "With all due respect, sir, you can hardly even stand up at the moment." He stopped laughing suddenly. "Is there...some connection between the murderer and that house?" 

A sudden mine field. "Why do you ask?"

"I knew someone who used to live there. It's...odd...that the assassin happened to be there." In a small voice, Clark said, "Is Lex in trouble, sir?" 

Bruce leaned back on the pillows. "It's...very possible." It certainly seemed unlikely to be a coincidence that a Superman-killing robot assassin would go to ground in Luthor's old home.

Clark looked down at his hands. "What was he like? The person who got killed?" 

Bruce blinked at the change of topic. He was having a hard time keeping up with Clark's thoughts today. "Huh?"

"You were...When you were asleep. You were having a nightmare. You kept begging someone not to die, not to leave you. You said you...never got a chance." 

Kal's mouth on his. Taste of blood. Bruce closed his eyes against the sight of Clark, washed by sunlight and glowing. He shouldn't say anything. But Kal-El deserved a eulogy of sorts from him. "He was...a good man. A hero. He made the world better by being in it. He made me...better." Too far. He stopped talking. 

Clark sounded wistful. "Sounds like a knight in shining armor. Like Galahad."

Bruce managed a faint snort at the image. "Something like that."

"Even though he's gone, he can keep making the world better. If he made you better, he'll make me better." Clark looked at Bruce. "Because I want to be like you." 

Bruce closed his eyes against what he saw in Clark's face. Moebius strip. Kisses and blood. Love and death.

Looping.

*****

Bruce stopped outside the ruins. "You stay here." The boy looked mutinous. "Look, it's dangerous. I know you don't believe me, but this guy could--he could kill you." Clark frowned but let him go. Of course, he thought the FBI agent would be returning soon. Bruce was fairly sure he would not. If the current theories on temporal physics were correct, there was a good chance that once Bruce stopped the robot from returning to wherever it came from, this spur in the timestream would cease to exist. "Glenn O'Neill" would vanish, the robot would vanish, this whole day would never have been. That would explain why Clark didn't remember meeting him before. 

Kal-El would still be dead in the future and Bruce would most likely find himself in the ruins of the old Luthor house with no memory of why he had gone there. No memory of meeting this young Clark Kent who wanted to be like him. Like Glenn O'Neill. 

Not an ideal solution by any means. But it was the optimistic scenario. If he failed to stop the robot and ended up trapped here, his only option--short of killing himself, which the robot might well do for him--was to find some quiet corner of the world and try, for the next seventeen years, to influence the world around him as little as possible. 

In any event, Clark was not going to see him again.

The ruins were silent. If the assassin were planning to trigger a return to its origin, it would probably have a secret room to return to. Bruce had no doubt that Lex Luthor had a warren of secret labs beneath the house. He prowled the burnt-out hulk, looking for--there. A hidden door in the fireplace, of course. He slipped inside. 

Beneath he found a room filled with active machinery, popping and whirring. He arrived just as the robot sketched a square in the air, opening a window in the middle of the nothingness. Through the window Bruce could see a scene frozen in time, all motion suspended. A busy lab, people halted in the middle of running, paper paused in mid-flutter. The equipment was slightly more advanced than the level Bruce knew. The clothing styles were a little strange. He estimated it was a scene about twenty years into his own future. His weapon must have interfered with the robot's ability to open time gates, caused it to jump some seventeen years into the past instead of the future. 

Bruce took all this in in an instant. The robot--Kal-El's murderer--paused for a moment, preparing to jump through. 

Behind Bruce's ear, a gasp. Clark's too-young voice. "What the _hell--"_

Bruce shoved Clark to the floor as the robot whirled and fired at them. Machinery went up in flares of sparks. The robot focused on Clark, recognizing him this time. As it honed in on him, Bruce leapt forward and jammed his makeshift weapon into the joint between its neck and shoulder. 

The assassin-- _it killed Kal!_ \--convulsed and collapsed. The window slammed shut and vanished. Bruce hardly noticed, hammering the weapon at the robot like a club, over and over again-- _cut him in half_ \--until the head broke off, spitting sparks. Then he ripped at the silver chest with the weapon, tearing and gouging-- _nothing left but the memory of a kiss_ \--until a hand on his shoulder stopped him. "Uh, I think he's--I think _it's_ \--dead, sir." 

Bruce looked down at his hands. He was still here. This spur hadn't ceased to exit. That meant most modern theories about temporal instability were wrong, and that the Wu/LaPierre variable was in effect. More importantly--he stared at the boy in front of him-- 

More importantly, it meant that it should be possible to jump forward again. To jump into the moment before Kal-El died. 

To save him.

Bruce whirled to examine the machinery in the room. Most of it was fairly primitive. The robot was badly battered now, but if he could just find the power pack, figure out how it ran--he was on his knees in front of the robot, delicately probing the still-sparking remains. He could do this. He could do this. He pulled part of the robot onto a workbench, scrambled for some of Luthor's abandoned tools. 

A hand on his shoulder again. He shrugged it off. It was back, more forcefully. "Mister, _what the hell just happened here?_ What was--I saw through that window--where was that?" Dawning realization in the handsome face. _"When_ was that?" Clark sat down abruptly on a dusty chair. "You're...you're from the future? You're a...a time traveller?" 

Bruce was focused on the machinery. "I can do this. I can save him. I'm going to go back and save him."

"The...guy who died? Galahad?" No answer. Clark watched him work for a long time. Eventually he slipped out and returned with another grilled cheese sandwich. It was still hot. 

*****

"Damn it!" Bruce swept a pile of papers and wires onto the floor in disgust. "It's not _working!"_ He buried his face in his hands briefly, then hauled himself up and back to the workbench. 

Clark's voice behind him. "You have to rest." He came around into Bruce's field of vision. "You've been going for forty-eight hours straight now with no sleep, and very little food. You're going to collapse." 

"I can get it. I know I can. I just need...just need to focus." 

Staggering _deja vu_ again. Two hands on his shoulders, insistent. Clark dragged him over to a metallic surface, pointed angrily to Bruce's reflection in it. Bloodshot eyes in a startlingly gaunt face stared back at him. He looked like hell. "You're _killing yourself!_ I've been bringing you food and coffee for two days now and watching you _kill yourself_ and I can't stand it anymore!" He glared at Bruce, his lower lip quivering very slightly. "No one's worth that. I don't care how perfect he was. He's not worth doing this to yourself." 

Bruce threw off the boy's hands. "Shut up. You don't know what you're saying." He pawed through the blueprints on the bench. "I do not need to be lectured about my private choices by some _child."_

"I'm not a _child."_ Clark's voice was tight and angry. "I'm old enough."

Bruce was staring down at his diagrams. If he rerouted the power through the secondary circuits, maybe. He snorted at Clark's words. "Old enough for _what?"_

No answer. He looked up and realized his mistake when he saw Clark's eyes.

Then Clark was up against him, his arms around him. _"Glenn."_ He said the personal name as though he'd been testing its sound in his mouth for days, tender and shaking. Not even the right name, thought Bruce with a stab of pain. The boy cupped Bruce's chin, his hand unsteady, and captured his mouth. Bruce went perfectly still, waiting for the kiss to be over 

_praying it would never end_

Bruce went perfectly still.

After a while, Clark pulled away, his eyes bright with tears. "Why? I know...I can tell..."

"I don't love you." 

Clark winced away from him. He waved a hand at the equipment scattered around. "It's _him,_ isn't it? Your Galahad. You loved _him."_

Bruce felt something as strong as anger uncoil inside him, an emotion that he allowed to turn his voice into a lash, bitter and sarcastic. _"Yes._ Yes, Clark. I never even knew it until he was dying in my arms, and then suddenly I realized I loved him and I never even got to tell him, that I had wasted my life fighting with the only person I could ever really love." He lurched a bit, grabbed at the workbench. "O woe is me, how I suffer. There, does that satisfy your hayseed sense of romantic tragedy?" 

The part of his mind still capable of strategic thought noted icily that the mocking dismissal routine worked better if one didn't start weeping in the middle of it. He scrubbed angrily at his face, looking away from Clark. "I've got to save him. I've got to." 

Clark looked down at his feet for a long time. When he squared his shoulders and looked up, he seemed older somehow. "If you promise. If you promise not to ask any questions. I have something that might help. I'll be right back." He turned and left. 

Bruce turned back to the workbench, his hands shaking. Clark's voice. _Glenn._ Clark's mouth on his.

He heard himself drag in a horrible breath, heard himself say, "No. No." Suddenly he saw the clues, the hints running through their lives. 

Clark remembered this. 

And if Clark remembered this, then...

He went to the silver surface Clark had made him look in earlier, looked at his own face again. Thin and gaunt. The scab on his jawline that he didn't remember getting. The bone-deep exhaustion, well beyond that of a week-long vigil. The recurring feeling of _deja vu._

Dear God... _how many times had he done this?_

The robot. They sent a robot because it wouldn't suffer memory loss upon return. Dimly, a part of Bruce's brain felt satisfaction at this evidence that the Nakamura theories on time travel and memory aphasia had now been proven correct. Not that it helped him much, trapped in an endless loop. 

He'd have to try something different. Something he hadn't tried on any of his previous trips, however many that might be. Something radically different.

The answer was quite obvious and almost pleasingly symmetrical in the abstract. 

Footsteps on the stairs. Clark came into the room, holding something out in front of him shyly. Something crystalline and sparkling.

Kryptonian technology.

"Please don't ask me where I got this. But maybe it can help you." 

Bruce took the crystals from him.

"I might be able to work something with this. Thank you."

Clark's smile was pleased and pained in equal measures.

*****

Bruce sighed and felt his shoulders sag. From a corner of the room, Clark looked up from where he'd been dozing. "Progress?" 

Bruce nodded. The room swam around him again at the motion and he found himself suddenly leaning on Clark. He stepped away. "I think I can get one use out of it. One jump forward."

"Will you...will you try it now?" 

Bruce didn't dare shake his head for fear of falling over. "No. I need at least one night of actual rest before the jump or I'll just fail." Again. "I'll go in the morning."

Clark pulled something from around his neck and held it out. "Wear this. For luck." 

Bruce reached out to look at the silver medallion. "Saint Christopher?"

A shrug. "I'm not Catholic. I just like Saint Christopher." That seemed about right. Clark put the medallion around Bruce's neck. His hands moved up into Bruce's hair, caressing. 

Bruce shook his head despite the dizziness. "Clark. This is just an infatuation."

Clark shook his head solemnly. "No. No." A brief flash of a grin. "I've had a crush on the head cheerleader for two years, I know what it feels like. This is...something different. Something real." He paused. "Glenn...I know you don't love me. But I remind you of _him._ I can tell. I don't--" Clark broke off. A blush crept up his cheeks and he finished in a rush, "--I don't need you to love me. To be with me tonight. Please." 

Bruce shook his head, not trusting his voice.

Desperation flashed in the unearthly blue eyes. "You're going to leave tomorrow and go back to the future and I'll never see you again and _I love you!"_

Everything seemed to hurt a great deal. Bruce closed his eyes. "Clark. You're...you're beautiful. Any sane person would desire you. And...you're like him, yes. You have the potential to be as great and as noble as he...was. But the man I love--" It still was hard to say-- "He would never forgive me if I took advantage of you tonight. And I could never forgive myself." He waited, swaying slightly, his eyes still closed, until he heard Clark leave the room and go upstairs into what was left of the Luthor house. 

Alone in the room, Bruce took a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote something in a bold, firm hand that wavered only slightly. He folded it and sealed it, scribbled a date on the outside. Then he found a corner of the room and pulled himself into the lotus position. He focused inward, closing out his exhaustion, closing out his worries, closing out the sound of a boy sobbing in the ruins above him. Inward. 

He had to be ready.

*****

Bruce came out of the lotus position exactly five hours later. He quietly started the machine. He had to leave before Clark came back downstairs. 

A window opened in the middle of the room. Through the window, a frozen moment in time. Superman was shielding a child from flying glass with his body, grace and power in every line. The child's face was a mix of terror and awe. The jagged lances of glass hung in midair, stopped. The robot assassin was caught in mid-fall, its circuitry disrupted by Arsenal's EMP arrow. Kal-El had less than three minutes to live. 

Superman wasn't looking at the child, or at the robot. His gaze was trained past the scope of the window, to the rooftop where Bruce knew Batman was watching, hidden.

The expression on Kal-El's face was one of agonized hope. 

There was a sound behind Bruce. He turned to see Clark standing in the doorway, his eyes riveted to the sight of himself in costume, in action. He stared as though he would never see enough of it, and Bruce could see the lines of his face settle, determination and purpose filling it. 

For the first time, it was Superman's face.

Clark tore himself away from the scene to stare at Bruce, wild surmise filling his eyes. His mouth worked wildly, but no sound came out.

"I can't let you die, Kal." Clark's eyes widened further at the use of his Kryptonian name. "I can't." 

Clark took a sudden step toward Bruce, his hand outstretched. "I'll wait for you!" he said fiercely. "I'll wait for you!"

Bruce shook his head angrily. "Don't be _stupid._ I don't even _like_ you when we first meet, we spend years at each other's _throats,_ you can't wait through that." But he already knew Clark would wait, already knew Clark _did_ wait, had waited for him over and over again only to die in his arms every single time, unsaved. 

Clark crossed the room to him and swept him up in a kiss of utter certainty that was impossible not to respond to. Gasping, Bruce buried his hands in Clark's hair and pulled him close. 

If he was going to be stuck in this loop until he died of exhaustion, if this was all he was ever going to get, then by God he was going to enjoy it this one time. 

He pulled away from Clark enough to speak, his lips still barely brushing Clark's mouth. "You can't tell me any of this when we meet. I can't risk any extra variables in my calculations. But Clark, you _have to believe me_ when I say it will all be okay." 

It wasn't even a lie, he told himself. Clark _did_ have to believe him.

"I've left you a note. Promise me you won't read it until the date on it. Promise me."

Clark's eyes were shining. "I promise." He caught up Bruce's hands and kissed them. "I'll try to be good enough for you." 

Bruce leaned forward and rested his forehead against Clark's. "Oh, Clark," he said softly. Then he turned swiftly and leapt through the opening.

It snapped closed behind him immediately, blotting out the vision of the future, leaving Clark alone with his destiny.


	3. The Third One

Superman felt the wind beneath him. He soared over the city, scanning the buildings. When he saw the black-clad figure crouched on a roof, he let go of the wind and dropped lightly in front of Batman, holding out his hand.

"Nice work back there. It seems I owe you again."

The vigilante looked at the hand for a moment, then clasped it in a firm, leather-clad grip. "I'll keep that in mind."

Superman felt the usual almost-unpleasant frisson up his spine at the low, rough voice. He let go of the black-gloved hand somewhat reluctantly. "We work well as a team."

A dismissive snort, but also the slightest twitch of a smile.

Superman mugged a bit, thrusting his chin out and plastering on a cheesy grin. "Any luck yet?"

Batman put a hand on his own chin, pondering exaggeratedly. "Mmmmmm. I might need to widen my search outside the United States."

Superman laughed and lifted off. "See you around, Batman."

"Not if I see you first, Superman."

The usual routine.

Superman let the wind carry him up higher and higher, to the outer fringe of the atmosphere. He turned and looked down at the gentle curve of the planet beneath him, touched with sunlight. He rubbed his hand absent-mindedly on his thigh, trying to erase the echo-sensation of leather.

He wasn't sure he liked the way he responded to Batman. The man was secretive, distrustful, sardonic and cutting at the best of times. And yet whenever Kal heard that voice...

He felt another shiver that not even the cold of space could have elicited from him. He hadn't felt this way in years, no one had ever made him feel like this. Not since that summer five years ago.

Slowly Superman descended from the sky, back to Metropolis, to get some rest.

To dream of black hands on his body and try not to feel unfaithful.

*****

When he saw the man on the pier a few days later, getting ready to board the ship, Clark couldn't believe it. It must be his imagination again--but no, it was him. It really was. Younger, so much younger, almost startlingly handsome. But still the face he had dreamed of for the last five years.

Clark felt like the heavens had opened up before him. Without thinking, he darted through the crowd and grabbed the man's shoulder. _"Glenn."_

The man whirled, yanking the shoulder away, an annoyed frown on his beautiful face. "What? I'm sorry, it's _Wayne._ Bruce Wayne." He pulled away and vanished into the crowd.

Clark just stood there stupidly--of course Glenn's last name wasn't O'Neill, he had searched and searched for him under that name to no avail. But it had never crossed his mind that his first name might have been false as well.

  
_...Bruce?_   


He'd been referring to his fated love in a thousand fevered fantasies for the last half-decade...by the wrong name?

Okay, okay, Bruce it was. The point was, he was _real_ and he was _here,_ and Clark had his name now and could keep an eye on him. They had to get to know each other somehow during the next decade, right?

Clark was just happy to know he was in the same city.

So when he ran into the darkly handsome man--and the two blonde bimbos on his arms--again at the cruise check-in, he was even more delighted. Gle-- _Bruce_ absent-mindedly shoved the suitcase at him as if he were a porter, demanding he press his underwear. Clark stood there with the suitcase in his hands, watching the man do a vapid aristocrat routine, insulting everyone around him. It was quite impressive. Of course, Clark knew perfectly well it was all a cover for his true identity as a government agent, so he took a certain abstract pleasure in watching Bruce perform. He had to admit the abrasiveness seemed genuine, the same roughness and sarcasm he had seen five years ago, currently untempered by the grace and almost hesitant gentleness of his future savior. This man wielded his intelligence like a rapier, gleefully jabbing at anyone who came near. Clark could see he was going to have to get used to that. At the moment, he didn't care.

He was going to be on the same _ship_ with Bruce Wayne.

Could this day get any better?

As he thought that, the clerk looked up apologetically at the two men. "I'm so sorry sirs, there seems to be a complication..."

Apparently the answer to his question was _hell yeah._

Bruce dumped his suitcase angrily on the bed as Clark followed more cautiously. He was obviously fuming. "Great. Just great. My first vacation in a year and I have to spend it with a hayseed yokel." He glared around the tiny room. "This isn't even first class!" He picked up the bottle of champagne by the bed and gestured angrily at Clark with it. "Completely inferior...rather like my cabin-mate, who is currently standing slack-jawed and knuckle-dragging in the doorway--are you going to come in or out, or just stand there?"

Clark tossed his suitcase on the bed, feeling rather stung despite himself, and spoke without thinking. "Maybe I've got more important priorities than some sissy city boy who obsesses over the brand of champagne in his cabin, huh?"

Bruce's eyebrows shot up into his hairline and for the first time a spark of something like respect glowed in those stormy blue eyes. "Sissy city boy?" he repeated disbelievingly, almost laughing. "This from a guy who probably took his own cousin to the prom?"

Clark glowered back at him. Glenn had never treated him like this. He felt a sudden jolt.

That was because this man didn't enjoy insulting children.

Which meant... _Clark wasn't a child to him._

Clark managed to keep his grin from reaching his face. "At least I didn't have to _rent_ a date to the prom," he said blandly, which made Bruce sputter for a while. He continued unpacking, sneaking looks at Bruce's suitcase. He spotted a pair of black silk pajamas.

He was going to be in the same _bed_ with Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne...in black silk pajamas.

Best.

Cruise.

  
_Ever._   


*****

Of course, he hadn't expected Bruce to be cuddly, so he just laid there, feeling the other man just a foot away from him, listening to him breathe, going over their evening's conversation ("bitching at each other" would probably be more accurate) and figuring out which approaches had made Bruce get the closest to actually laughing. Maybe Superman could work more closely with the FBI from now on? There had to be some way to get into this man's life. Obviously there had to be, obviously there _was,_ since Bruce knew his secret identity in the future.

Clark just had to be patient.

Bruce's breathing eventually evened out into the long, slow breaths of sleep, and Clark rolled over carefully to look at him. Asleep, he looked rather more like the Bruce of the future Clark had fallen in love with. The harsh defensive lines of his face relaxed a little, becoming just a bit more approachable. As Clark watched, he shifted in his sleep, a shadow falling across his face, making him look worried and tired. At that moment, he looked achingly like the man who had risked his life to save Clark's, and Clark suddenly didn't feel patient at all.

He leaned over and kissed Bruce.

He barely had time to register the feel of the mouth beneath his before he was flipped onto his back away from Bruce. "What the holy _hell?"_ snarled the other man.

Clark rubbed his eyes and looked stunned, which wasn't that hard with the amount of adrenaline running through his body. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he stammered.

"I'm just going to _assume_ you were half-asleep there, Kent." Bruce's eyes glinted dangerously.

"I thought...I thought you were someone else for a second." It was even true.

Bruce yanked the blanket under him and Clark fell to the floor with a thump. "Who? Your favorite cow, maybe?"

Many people have wished, at moments of intense embarrassment, that a dimensional rift would open up and swallow them whole.

Clark Kent is one of the few people ever actually granted that wish.

As bizarre pastel lightning crackled all around the ship, he found himself at the porthole beside Bruce, staring out at the eldritch light display in the sky. Screaming started to break out along the ship. Clark stared at Bruce, who stared back at him. He knew Bruce had to find out his secret identity eventually, but...was it now? Would he screw up "Glenn"'s plans in the future if he revealed himself too early? How could he ever be sure when to meddle in the complicated flow of--

"I'm sorry about this, Kent," growled Bruce, and launched a dart at him.

Clark was too surprised even to respond, as he felt the familiar chill run up his spine at the voice. _Batman's voice._ The dart crumpled and bounced off of him. He caught it absent-mindedly on the rebound.

A very long pause.

"The chin," said Bruce Wayne musingly.

Clark felt numb. "I always vibrate a little bit when someone takes my picture." Bruce nodded grimly to himself.

Clark just kept staring. If Glenn was Bruce and Bruce was Batman--this was fairly simple algebra, he thought insanely--then Glenn was Batman.

He didn't know whether to be annoyed that the one person he had thought could distract him from his obsession with Glenn O'Neill turned out to _be_ Glenn O'Neill, or to be thrilled beyond belief that it didn't matter, it didn't matter, wherever Clark met him he was the one, the one worth waiting for. The only one.

He didn't have enough time to decide before an orange-clad maniac crashed through the porthole and was instantly riddled with bullets. Then a grenade was launched through the porthole. Clark shielded Bruce with his body-- _don't think about the black silk pajamas, Clark_ \--and they stared blankly at the remaining wreckage of their room. "You go up there and deal with the science fiction fest, and I'll handle the assassin when he comes back," said Bruce. Clark changed into his costume and headed up.

And then things got _weird._

Clark didn't have a whole lot of time to contemplate this stunning turn of events in his life as he dealt with his homicidal and highly skeevy doppleganger. He did, however, have time to hope that he never, _ever_ came off as even _half_ the dick this guy was.

When he found himself clasping hands with Batman and promising to have a long talk with him, though, it all came crashing back in on him. Batman was the man who had worn himself almost to death trying to save him, the man he had heard crying out in his sleep for someone--for _Clark_ \--not to leave him alone. Batman was the man who had yelled at him, weeping and exhausted beyond bearing, that he had to save "the only person he could ever really love." It was almost too much to process.

And then Lois showed up and Clark had to whisk Batman off, strip him down, and get him into a robe to save their secret identities.

That was pretty much the perfect end to a great day. Especially when he discovered Batman had enough of a sense of humor to wear pink boxers with little white bunny rabbits on them.

  
_Awesome._   


As Lois stormed away, Bruce leaned against the bow railing, still looking a little green from his Mach-4 wardrobe change. "Man," he said plaintively, "I have to go find new clothes somewhere, since all of mine have been blown to smithereens." He ran a hand through his windblown hair and sighed.

Damn, he was beautiful.

Clark went to stand next to him. "So, have you thought any more about our plans for forming a league of heroes?"

An inelegant snort. "What's this 'our,' _kemosabe?_ _Your_ plans for your little caped crusader country club."

"All right then, my plans. Have you thought about them?"

Bruce shot him a wry glance. "Don't rush me, Kent. These things don't happen overnight. You have to be patient."

Clark leaned on the rail and looked out over the ocean, feeling the wind streaming by as the ship carried them inexorably into the future together.

He smiled.

"Bruce, you have _no idea_ just how patient I can be."


	4. The Fourth One

"Clark. Would you _please_ stop pacing. You're making me nervous."

Almost midnight in New York City. New Year's Eve. The Watchtower.

Superman did another circuit around the monitor room, raking his hand through his black hair absent-mindedly. "I'm sorry, Bruce. I'm just...on edge tonight."

Batman made a rattling growling sound, looking at the screens. "You and me both. I hate pulling monitor duty on major holidays."

"The kids have got Gotham covered just fine, Bruce."

"I know that and I don't really care, I still want to be there." Bruce tapped a few buttons to check different cities. Nothing earth-shaking on the monitors. "So we know why _I'm_ irritable--even more irritable than usual, yes, Clark, you don't have to say it--but why is Mr. Sunshine on pins and needles tonight?"

Superman went to the huge windows overlooking the Earth. He sighed and leaned forward, resting his forehead on the cool glass. "It's just--I've looked forward to something for so long, Bruce, and now that it's almost here I don't know whether to be hopeful or afraid. It's too big for me."

Batman laughed scoffingly. "Could you be a little more vague there, Captain Ambiguous? I'm afraid I almost understood you."

Superman closed his eyes. "I sincerely doubt that."

A hand on his shoulder. He whirled to find Batman beside him, his head tilted slightly to the side. "Clark." The mocking tone was gone from his voice. "Is something wrong? I know we've had our differences of opinion in the past, but I would hope you could confide in me." The slightest hint of a smile. "I know you'd never go so far as to call me 'friend,' but I can be a surprisingly good listener."

Clark cleared his throat. "I've never had a problem calling you a friend, Bruce."

Surprise flickered in the set of the jaw. "Really? We've had some knock-down, drag-out arguments that might say otherwise."

Clark smiled wanly. "I thought you enjoyed them."

Definite hesitation now. Clark imagined the puzzled, aquiline face beneath the cowl, so very close to the face he fell in love with seventeen years ago. Only a few days separated this Bruce from his Glenn. He felt desire and fear seize him again. So close.

"That's beside the point, Clark. What I mean--"

The Watchtower alarms burst into sound, cutting him off. Batman whirled to the monitors. "New York," he barked. "Times Square. Energy readings I've never seen before. Massive. We need to get everyone we can there _now."_ He started calling up active members.

Superman felt oddly numb, distant, floating above himself. "I'll meet you there," he said.

*****

The fight was intense, furious. The silver robot darted about Times Square at superhuman speeds. It was all Superman could do to keep the bystanders relatively safe. He watched it trade energy bolts with Green Lantern and Black Lightning, watched Arsenal's EMP arrow hit it with a sizzling noise. The robot plummeted from the sky along with a deadly rain of glass. Superman shielded a child from the flying shards-- _there, that moment, that was the moment he had seen through the window_ \--and the robot thudded into the ground in front of him.

He had to keep the civilians away, the thing was still deadly. "Everyone, stand back, it might not be--"

The robot jerked upward.

As it did, a man in a black suit suddenly leapt in between Superman and the robot, jamming a small taser-like device through its eye socket.

The energy beam that could have eviscerated the Kryptonian vaporized the human instantly. The robot fell over, sputtering. The man was simply gone.

The rest of the JLA came charging up to Superman. Batman swung down from a roof, stumbling a little as he hit the ground, and shook off Wonder Woman's hand. "Just a little dizzy," he snapped. He went up to Kal-El, who was standing frozen, his arms outstretched as if to hold or prevent something. "What happened, Kal? Who the hell was that guy?"

Superman didn't move, staring straight ahead at the place the man had been. There was something dangling from his hand, caught up at the moment the man was destroyed. Batman reached out and touched it gently, setting it swinging.

A blackened, fused piece of metal on a chain.

"Kal?" Batman's voice was worried now. "Did you know him?"

"Son of a bitch," said Superman hollowly. He wasn't speaking to Batman. His face twisted. "Son of a _bitch!"_

He took to the air so abruptly that the pavement around his feet cracked and shattered, and flew off at top speed without looking back.

The rest of the JLA was left to do clean-up. They canvassed the onlookers, but no one could tell them the identity of the man who had saved Superman's life at the cost of his own.

*****

New Year's Day at the Fortress of Solitude. Superman sat, looking blankly at the Arctic waste outside. The computer console flickered to life with Diana's face.

"Kal. I know you're upset right now. It's always terrible to have someone give their life for you. In some ways it's even worse when it's a stranger." Beyond Diana's field of vision, Kal dropped his face into his hands. "But please, don't close yourself off to us. We haven't been able to find anything about him, but when we find his family or friends, we'll let you know."

Superman didn't respond, and after a moment Diana's worried face disappeared. Kal wiped his eyes, stood and paced through the empty Fortress aimlessly. There was an envelope hidden away in the archives; an envelope sealed in a lead box against the temptation to look through the sealed paper, see the words he yearned to read. And now that the day had finally come, he didn't know if he could bear to read it. What possible solace could those words provide him now? Eventually, though, he went and found the box, placed it on a table and looked at it, unopened. He looked at it for a very long time. He reached out and rested his hand for a few minutes on the lid, gently. A sudden fear gripped him--what if, with Bruce's death, the letter had vanished? _Not this, I can't lose this too. Please, no._ In a rush of panic, he tore open the box, and felt a wash of relief at the sight of the cream-colored paper.

On the outside, in bold strong handwriting he had since come to know very well, was "January 1st," and the current year. After a while he broke the seal and opened the letter, the soft rustle of paper the only sound in the deep, perpetual winter silence.

**_If you're reading this, then I succeeded and the loop is broken. I suspect I know how this will have to be accomplished._ **

**_I'm sorry, Clark._ **

Clark stopped reading for a moment. He had thought he was finally beyond tears.

**_I'm taking these last few hours to implant a hypnotic suggestion and a trigger. The trigger word is at the bottom of the letter. The odds of it working are very slim, as almost no quantum temporal theories think it possible. But find me and say it. Who knows._ **

Clark imagined Bruce pausing, the pen poised above the paper, gathering his thoughts before starting the next paragraph.

**_If it's any consolation, I felt this way before you died, before I came here. I just didn't admit it to myself. It's there, Clark, even if I never remember this time here with you. You're stubborn, you'll find a way to get through to me, I know it._ **

**_Yours, Bruce_ **

At the very bottom was one word. Clark looked at it for a long time. Then he put the letter back in the lead case, very carefully. He picked up the ruined pendant and watched it twirl in the dim Arctic sunlight.

*****

Batman was working in the cave when Superman's call came through. "Have you decided to stop moping?" he asked curtly. He kept typing as he waited for an answer. Finally he looked back up at the screen. "Clark?"

"Can I come there and talk to you?"

Batman scowled. "I'm just a touch busy trying to figure out where that killer robot came from, who the guy was who stopped it, and why the hell he was using modified WayneCorp tech as a weapon." He glanced up again and saw what Superman was holding. "Hey, I need that necklace, it's evidence."

"I'll bring it to you if you'll give me a moment to talk."

Various irritated noises. "All right, but make it quick."

"It won't take long. I just need a word with you."

A few minutes later, Batman heard footsteps on the stairs leading down from the manor. Clark was walking down into the cave in civilian clothes--jeans, sneakers, flannel shirt. "Alfred showed me in," he said at Batman's look. When Batman said nothing, he added, somewhat defensively. "I had to be Clark right now."

Batman spotted the pendant dangling from Clark's hand and jerked his chin toward a bench with a few items on it. "Put it over there with the rest of the stuff I'm analyzing." Clark walked over and saw the weapon, pieces of the robot, a few vials and envelopes laid out neatly on a bench. He put out his hand to place the medallion on the bench, but paused, reluctant to let it leave his hand for the final time. After a moment, he heard Bruce's voice behind him. _"Today,_ Clark."

Clark turned to see Batman glaring at him. He cleared his throat. "Could you. Um. I really need to see your face. Could you..."

The brow under the cowl furrowed, but Bruce removed the mask to stand there, his deep blue eyes slightly curious, slightly annoyed. Clark stared at him. He had tried so hard for the last decade not to see his love's face when looking at Bruce, but now he couldn't help it. _Glenn._ The face that he had seen for only the briefest of glimpses before it disappeared again forever looked back at him, beautiful and brave and determined and...slightly annoyed. "Is there a problem, Clark?"

Clark clenched his fingers around the chain of the medal, bit his lip. He felt terribly young and awkward again. In an agony of embarrassment, hope, and apprehension, he blurted out, "You said to say-- _Galahad."_

No response, no reaction on the other man's face. Clark waited two heartbeats, then three. Then he smiled, a little sadly. He could wait some more. "Never mind. I'm sorry." He stepped back to the bench to put the pendant on it. "I didn't mean to bother you."

As he released the silver chain, Bruce was suddenly there beside him, catching it in his black-gloved hand before it fell. Batman stripped off the gloves to let the chain and blackened medal pool in the palm of his bare hand. His fingers closed around it. Then he turned abruptly away from Clark, still holding the medallion, his back rigid.

After a while, he said, a bit hoarsely, his back still turned, "Clark. You damn fool idiot. I told you _not to wait."_

Clark swallowed hard, the sound audible in the stillness of the cave. "And I told you I would."

Bruce didn't turn to face Clark. He looked down at the medal in his hand, shaking his head slightly. "I remember." His voice shook almost imperceptibly. "I remember every time, up until the moment I went through for the last time. Every time you died in my arms. Over and over. Every time you...tried to say my name. Every time you--" He broke off, swung to look at Clark at last, his face bleak. "I remember _every single one._ Every time I failed you."

"You saved me this time. This is the one you should remember, the only one that matters." Unable to bear it any longer, Clark stepped forward, but Bruce raised a hand to stop him.

"No. Don't."

Clark stopped, his face very young and bewildered in the dim light of the cave.

Bruce stepped up to Clark and looped the silver medallion around his neck. Then his fingers brushed Clark's throat, his nape, flitted along his jawline, his cheekbones, his brow, the curve behind his ear, as if he were caressing something infinitely precious. A whisper of touch along Clark's lower lip, and Clark closed his eyes. He felt as if time had finally stopped pushing him forward, had paused for one merciful moment to let him be completely here, totally now, feeling Bruce's fingertips flickering across his face like gentle fire.

 _"You_ kissed _me_ every other time," said Bruce very softly. "It's finally my turn." He leaned forward.

It was probably the best first kiss imaginable.

After all, they'd had a lot of practice.


End file.
